In early October, the long-running push for the launch of a new smart home standard called Matter was finally released as announced by The Connectivity Standards Alliance. This announcement opened the door to official product certification for the first Matter accessories, and it comes as the latest iOS 16.1 betas add support for the technology. Today, the HomeKit-focused smart home vendor Eve is launching Matter support for three existing products.
The most recent versions of the smart plug Eve Energy, the contact sensor Eve Door & Window, and the motion sensor Eve Motion have completed Matter certification. On December 12, iPhone users can upgrade those devices to support Matter.
Owners of all Thread-enabled Eve devices will receive free Matter firmware updates over time. Matter-certified Eve products will start to become available in retail from the first quarter of 2023. A corresponding version of the app for Android is scheduled for release at this time as well.
I am very optimistic about Matter in the future. While it won’t take away all the frustrations about smart homes that exist today, I am hopeful that, over time, it will help us get a little closer to that vision. Uniting the industry behind a single vision is a key part of making all homes smart homes.
“The next era of the smart home is here, and we can now invite users across all major ecosystems to the Eve experience,” says Jerome Gackel, CEO of Eve Systems. “No matter what phone or assistant you are controlling your Eve product from, it will always deliver 100% privacy, a superior set of software features, and unparalleled ease of installation.”
“Eve is a great example of how smart home device makers can build helpful, innovative Matter devices, that deliver great out of box experiences with Android Fast Pair, and Google Home” said Karen Yao, Director of Product Management for Google Home. “As one of our earliest partners, Eve has been instrumental in helping us ensure all the tools in the Google Home Developer Center can help developers deliver those seamless user experiences.”
